Catch up with C-IPM’s plant breeding workshop

28, 2016

Further details are now available online of C-IPM’s plant breeding for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) workshop, held earlier this year, including answers to a number of key questions posed during the two and a half day event in Poland.

Jointly organised by the European Research Area Network Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (ERANet C-IPM) and Poland’s Plant Breeding and Acclimatization Institute, the event brought together 57 scientists, governmental officials and breeding company representatives from 16 European countries.

They discussed three main issues. The first questioned whether a different type of plant breeding was required for IPM instead of the commonly used, classical plant breeding. Second, participants discussed whether there are already ongoing research and development programmes regarding breeding for IPM, both at the national and European levels. Finally, the group dealt with how to promote the diversification of crops and crop types by combining agronomic practices with newly deployed breeding materials.

Questions the workshop participants answered included:

How can we account for IPM when breeding disease/pest resistance?

How can breeding help foster the adoption of other IPM strategies?

Which breeding strategies should be used for crop diversification?

What is the role of new breeding techniques?

How can we co-design breeding and IPM strategies and what is the impact on regulation and organisation?

Answers and comments to these questions can be found on the C-IPM website.